


kintsugi

by burnshoney



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Mutual Pining, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Patching Each Other Up, Scars, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:34:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22321156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnshoney/pseuds/burnshoney
Summary: (noun) the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum to emphasize its scars \\ or: Janai patches up Amaya a week after the battle, Amaya lets her, and they both learn a thing or two
Relationships: Amaya/Janai (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 101





	kintsugi

**Author's Note:**

> day one of janaya week!! not gonna lie, this one was a little hard to get out as words but i think i did my idea justice! this is heavily inspired by BloopScr on twitter's janayaweek day one art, so shoutout to her! 
> 
> i'm going to do my best to publish every day but my dumbass decided to take on a lot of shifts at work so we'll see how long that vow lasts. in the meantime, enjoy this fluffy flirty food!!

Amaya watches Janai pause in the middle of the room. The quarters she's been given for the time being in Lux Aurea are cavernous and gilded, all gold and dark woods with swatches of fine red silk and velvet. It's opulent, almost to the point of nausea to a military woman like herself, but it all fades to obscurity around Janai.  Janai reaches out before her hand pauses in the space between them. They're both only in their dressing gowns and Amaya studies how the flickering of the candles in her room dances across the Sunfire Queen's face. Softened with expected sleep as they are, Amaya nods gently and lowers herself onto the bed, inviting Janai to come closer.

It's only been a week since the Storm Spire and Amaya's wounds — while severe, are fading quicker than usual aided by the Sunfire healers. "We're quite used to burns _ ,"  _ Janai had chuckled when Amaya asked, aided by Gren's voice, "Children with heat or light being often don't know how to control it when they're young so we've gotten skilled at healing any resulting burns."

Quietly, Amaya is glad Gren is already asleep. While she loves her friend and interpreter, the presence of a third person has set an uneasy air about the two of them when they're together so Amaya had let Gren go back to his own quarters before Janai had knocked at her door. A brighter flame at the torch near the door had clued her to Janai's entrance. Answering quickly as to not wake her Lieutenant next door, Amaya had already let her dressing gown slip from her shoulders on her way back to her bed before realizing Janai wasn't following.

She had turned and immediately flushed. Janai's eyes had burned across the pale skin at her neck and collarbones, exposed by Amaya's anticipation. Amaya knows even now without looking down that not only are the burns at her neck from Prince Kasef's grip visible but the faded burn across her chest from Janai's Sunforge blade back from their fight at the Breach. 

The scar Janai hadn't seen until now.

Janai takes a stuttering half-step forward and Amaya watches her. Whatever's between them is fragile and new, unstable at best, brought on by an adrenaline-fueled kiss after finding each other on the battlefield — mostly — unharmed and the attraction has only grown since then. Janai's insisted on taking care of her wounds since then and Amaya has let her, even as the air between them wavers with heat Amaya knows she isn't imagining when the Sunfire elf's steps between her legs. 

Her fingers brush the hollow of her throat.

Amaya's eyes dart to Janai's, breath hitching in her chest and Amaya knows Janai's felt it by the way her own eyes darken when they meet. A shiver runs down Amaya's spine for a sparking moment before Janai is tearing herself away to gather the supplies she's left on the vanity every night before.

She feels mournful for a second in a way she doesn't recognize. Janai's hands tremble as she gathers the poultice and gauze and Amaya doesn't realize she's moving until she's covering Janai's fingers with her own.

Janai starts, whipping her gaze around but Amaya just gently guides their overlapped hands to the lid of the medicine. As close as she is, the human General can  _ feel  _ the giddy cadence of Janai's heartbeat before she's swirling Janai's fingers in the cool paste.

Bringing her hand up, Amaya turns towards her fully at the exact moment Janai's fingertips — covered in the herbal remedy — touch her throat. She keeps Janai's gaze the entire time, watching how the Queen's eyes dart from Amaya's face to her own fingers at her neck, spreading the medicine around the healing burns.

"I.." Janai starts but stops, worrying her lower lip between her teeth. Amaya waits. "I am... _ glad  _ you weren't harmed further, General."

Amaya shakes her head, finger tapping at Janai's wrist still held to her skin. Janai chuckles breathlessly. "Amaya," she amends and draws her hand back to pick up more poultice before hesitating. "But what I said was true. I wasn't sure, when the human Prince threw you, but—"

_ Stop.  _

Janai may not know much of Katolis' sigh language but she recognizes the movements — Amaya's left hand up between them, her right palm coming to the meet the left. A week has aided her knowledge of the language between Kazi, Amaya's own Lieutenant Gren, and Amaya herself and Janai averts her eyes.

A hand gently grasps her chin, fingers curling upwards from her jaw and thumb resting firmly on her lower lip. Janai gasps, a flush working it's way up her neck as Amaya draws her eyes back to herself before nodding. She signs the same thing she did on the battlefield as Janai cradled her back to her chest before Soren was leading her away, limping.

_ I'm OK, _ Amaya signs, each individual letter. Janai is quietly grateful for Kazi's hurried lesson in the alphabet, then.  _ I'm OK, Janai. _

It's something that still takes Janai's breath away, even after a week. 

"I don't understand this sign," Janai had confided in Kazi after only a day, pulling the scholar aside in the corridor. "Am —  _ the General _ keeps signing it to me but I don't remember you teaching it to me."

Kazi had blinked in surprise before pushing their gold-rimmed glasses further up their nose. The lenses had glinted in the afternoon sun, aided by the purified Sun as they nodded. "I would be happy to help, Your Radiance. Show me?"

Janai had copied it to the best of her ability and there had been a moment of silence before Kazi was smothering a smile. 

"Ah."

"Ah?" Janai had echoed, eyebrows furrowing. "What does it mean?"

The scholar had grinned outright, then. "It's your name sign, my Queen. General Amaya has given you a name sign."

Janai had frozen.

"A name sign?"

"Yes!" Kazi had said excitedly, eyes lighting up behind their thin lenses. "A name sign is the equivalent of your name in sign language but it's assigned by the person signing it. If you watch closely, the General has one for each person in her life — her Commander is  _ Voice,  _ for example where she would say his name. It's a placeholder, a usually intimate thing, so she doesn't have to finger-spell your name every time since there's no sign for  _ Janai." _

Janai's shoulders had loosened with understanding. "So General Amaya has...given me a name?"

Kazi had nodded eagerly. "It seems so!"

"What is it?"

Kazi had lifted their hands, speaking as they went through each motion. First they curled all their fingers but the smallest — "the letter J," they explained, "except the General uses her pinky. Four fingers makes it tricky sometimes," before bringing the same hand to their chest. 

"My," Kazi said and took the hand from their chest to trace a circle in the air with their pointer. Janai watched them copy her movements, giving each twitch of their fingers a meaning she wished she could understand without explanation. The finger in the air finished the circle before their entire hand splayed downwards. "Is that it?"

"Yes," Janai had nodded before frowning. "But what was the last sign?"

She copied it and Kazi's face had split into a wider smile. "Sun."

"Sun? So my name sign is... _ J My Sun?" _

Janai watches Amaya sign her name in the flickering torchlight of her bedchamber and smiles when she finishes. "I know," she says gently as she finishes spreading the medicine along the column of Amaya's neck. "I know my name, Amaya. Thank you."

For a moment Amaya looks surprised before it melts into a soft smile. She nods, inclining her head before signing something Janai doesn't understand. For not the first time Janai wishes the General's language was easier to learn but she is Queen now, her days filled to the brim with rebuilding her city and her people while ushering in peace treaties and she lacks a finger that Amaya has. 

Janai shakes her head and a piece of parchment is pressed into her hand. Amaya's neat scrawl marches across the page.  _ Little mouse snitched, didn't they? _

She must look confused because Amaya leans forward with the charcoal pencil in hand.

_ Kazi,  _ she writes.  _ Little mouse seems to fit them best. They were embarrassed when I called them that for the first time.  _

Janai snorts. "You would be correct. But what...what made you think of my name sign? The Sun?" She leaves out  _ My  _ and Amaya seems to read that in her eyes.

Amaya takes back the parchment as Janai wipes off her hand of the remaining poultice. She slides it back across the vanity a time later. 

_ I thought that would be obvious,  _ she's written and Janai chuckles, looking up at her. Amaya points back to the parchment before reaching for the roll of gauze and beginning to wrap her neck.  _ You are the Sun, Janai. I know that now. Not just because you hold heat and light inside of you and brought back the Sun to your people, but because of this. _

Her words end there and Janai looks up.  _ "This?" _ she repeats, confused, before blinking dumbly at Amaya's right palm held out between them for a moment.

It sinks in. Janai knows better than anyone the burn scar that sits in the heart of Amaya's hand, no longer an angry red but a muted pink, and the three darker lines that run through it. Her own hand moves before she realizes it and Amaya's breath stutters when Janai's fingers trace the three lines.

They both know it's from the cracked lines of Janai's skin when Amaya tackled her, held her down even when her glove burned away as Janai let herself sink into the blank, angry mindlessness of her heat-being. The lines like the Breach's river of lava had erupted on her skin and now are burned into Amaya's hand forever.

Even the healers at Lux Aurea's palace, the finest of them all, hadn't been able to erase it fully and Janai lets her fingertips ghost over the scar. She knows Amaya feels no pain from them and looks up.

"The Sun," she says shakily and Amaya watches her. " _ My  _ Sun?  _ Your Sun?" _

She thinks she's overstepped when Amaya's eyes flash but then Amaya's hand encircles her waist gently, tugging her closer. Janai, never able to deny Amaya anything — including the finest of Lux Aurea not limited to her bedchamber — follows until their noses almost brush.

Janai's breath ruffles the fringe of Amaya's hair. "I'm sorry," she murmurs already knowing Amaya's answer. She's said this every night for the past week when presented with Amaya's palm to spread the medicine over before wrapping and each time Amaya's shaken her head.

She shakes her head now. 

_ OK,  _ she finger-spells between them and Janai hesitantly rips her eyes away from Amaya's lips to read her hands.  _ OK.  _ As close as they are, their first kiss still unspoken about, lightning seems to sing through her veins at every touch and Janai feels dizzy with the contact as if she's drunk.

"I know," Janai says hoarsely and licks her lips. Neither one misses how Amaya's eyes dart to the motion and Janai flushes. "I still am sorry but I'm thankful you're not in pain." She tries to take a step back and Amaya's hand on her waist loosens. "Is that...is that all? I should go."

Amaya watches her, eyes piercing. Even though she hasn't said a thing Janai knows she's been studied and picked apart slowly by things she hasn't realized speak volumes — focusing on the wall behind Amaya instead of looking her in the eye, the set ache of her shoulders with guarded force, the straight pressed line of her lips. All restraining herself from saying  _ or doing  _ something she'll regret, like kissing Amaya until her head spins and she takes off Amaya's dressing gown not to mend her wounds but to kiss every inch of her body.

She's exhausted and Amaya must see that because she takes a step back fully until there's more than a hands-width between them. Janai feels like she can breathe again even as her heart gives an odd, mournful lurch towards the human General.

Amaya bows at the waist before standing, hand on her breast in decorum raised to sign.  _ Goodnight, Queen Janai,  _ she signs with a knowing smile that's small and understanding. Janai returns it for even as familiar as they are their titles come first. 

One night she will act on the feelings swirling around in her breast, the words building up in her throat but they're both tired and still wounded. Tonight is not that night but she soothes herself with the knowledge it  _ will be,  _ soon.

Janai half-bows as well.

"Goodnight, General Amaya," she murmurs and the bedchamber door clicks shut gently. Janai lingers but only for a moment — her hand on the ornate doorknob, forehead pressed to the dark wood and gilded metal. She imagines Amaya doing the same on the other side before straightening.

The wounds of her city, of her people and the throne and herself, are not as easily fixed as the burns on Amaya's hands and neck.


End file.
